PS5 SSD Expansion Testing with the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD
Always a big name in the world of computer components and gaming PC architecture, Gigabyte is a stalwart brand in motherboards but their recent M.2 NVMe SSD is the focus of today’s article. The Gigabyte Aorus 7000s is one of the higher tier SSDs on the market right now and very much in the sights of PS5 SSD upgraders right now (largely because of it’s high specs, it’s affordable price and it’s included premium quality heatsink). Whether you are looking at upgrading the SSD on your PS5 because you are running out of space or because you heard that some SSDs can increase load times for your favourite games, it is always going to be sensible to spend a few minutes researching before pulling the trigger and spending hundreds on the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s to avoid finding out that the benefits are negligible or, worse still, actually slow your games down! Equally, you should always factor in that the PS5 is a relatively new console and games developers are still in the early stages of maximizing how much they can do with the CPU, Memory, GPU and (of course) super-fast NVMe M.2 SSD. Therefore the commitment you make on buying an SSD upgrade to your PS5 needs to also factor in that it will still perform well in the years to come. The Gigabyte Aorus 7000s meets a number of the key specifications of the PS5 storage bay, but then again many, MANY SSDs do. So today I want to put this SSD through it’s paces with many games to see how well it compares against the internal PS5 SSD doing the same thing. NOTE – FULL Videos of the testing of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s that combined cover more than an hour can be found at the bottom of the article. This article primarily covers the load times of games and saves on the PS5 using the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD and how they compare with the internal PS5 loading the same game. If you want to watch the full videos that cover PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s use that feature frame rates, texture swapping, asset management and more, I recommend you watch those videos at the end of this article.
Here is the PS5 internal Benchmark for the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD at the initialization of the system:
What Are the Specifications of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD?
Before we go through the load time testing of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s on the PS5, it is worth taking a look at the hardware specifications. Unlike traditional Hard Drives and SSDs that were using the PS3 and PS4 that used SATA connectivity, this new generation of SSD storage using M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 architecture. This is a very, VERY big difference physically, in terms of maximum performance and opens up ALOT of specifications that you should keep an eye on. Aside from the capacity (i.e the amount of data the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s can hold in gigabytes and terabytes) the key ones to factor in when buying an SSD are the following:
- Controller & NAND – These are the brain of the SSD (handling the transfer of data as quickly and efficiently as possible) and the physical cells on the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD that hold the data. As long as you are using 3D TLC NAND (the industry preferred middle ground for price vs performance), you should be ok. Though the better the quality of NAND, generally the better the performance and durability long term.
- Sequential Read – This is the reported maximum access speed that the data on the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD can be access when accessing large blocks of data
- Sequential Write – This is the reported maximum speed that data can be written to the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD. As far as the PS5 architecture goes, this is much less important right now but could become important later in the system’s life as games, services and the level to which the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s can be accessed changes.
- IOPS – These represent the number of individual operations the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD can handle per second, based on the smallest size possible. Again, not strictly relevant in the PS5 right now because of the way data is largely front-loaded on modern games, but may well impact how larger and evolved worlds and multiplayer games are developed in future
- TBW, MTBF & DWPD – Terabytes Written and Drive Writes Per Day, these indicate how much the drive is designed to withstand in activity over a 5 year or daily basis (respectively), Before the drive begins to deteriorate in performance or eventually fail. The PS5 will hardly be able to hit these kind of numbers daily BUT these figures will give you a good idea of the lifespan of the SSD beyond 5 years. Given the lifespan of some consoles can cross over a decade, the higher these numbers are, the better!
Here are the official specifications of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD:
| Brand/Series
|
AORUS Gen4 7000s
1TB – $249.99 |
AORUS Gen4 7000s
2TB – $549.99 |
| PRICE | GP-AG70S1TB | GP-AG70S2TB |
| Price in $ and $ | $199 / £189 | $359 / £399 |
| Throughput | GP-AG70S1TB | GP-AG70S2TB |
| Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB | 7000MB | 7000MB |
| Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB | 5500MB | 6850MB |
| IOPS | GP-AG70S1TB | GP-AG70S2TB |
| Random Read (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 | 350,000 | 650,000 |
| Random Write (Max, IOPS), 4 KB QD32 | 700,000 | 700,000 |
| ENDURANCE | GP-AG70S1TB | GP-AG70S2TB |
| Total Terabytes Written (TBW) | 700TB | 1400TB |
| Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours) | 1,600,000 | 1,600,000 |
| DWPD | 0.38DWPD | 0.38DWPD |
So, now you know the hardware specifications of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD and you also know that (at the time of writing!) the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s is supported by the PS5 SSD expansion bay.
IMPORTANT – This article contains ALOT of gifs to demonstrate the loading times of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD versus the internal PS5 SSD, so the page/gifs might take an extra minute to load. Please be patient OR watch the videos of the full testing a the bottom of the page.
Testing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD with the PS5 – Test Parameters
All of the tests of the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD on the PS5 were conducted in groups of 5 games at a time. In the event of a game arriving on a disc, the full disc data and all current updates were transferred over the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD. The disc might be present, but it is only for system verification and would be an identical setup to the PS5 internal SSD that it is being compared against. The SSD was tested using the latest PS5 Beta Firmware update (3.0 or 3.1 depending on the time of testing as a further update was made available during the widespread testing) and although the supported drives when the SSD expansion feature might change, the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD is fully functioning and supported on the PS5 at the time of writing. So, let’s get started on the testing of each game:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Demon Souls Nexus Loading Test
This test was loading from the title screen to the central hub world (Nexus) of Demon Souls, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Demon Souls Archstone 2 Test
This test was loading to the Smithing Grounds of Demon Souls, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Demon Souls Archstone 1 Test
This test was loading to the first main area of Demon Souls, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Ratchet & Clank World Loading Test I
This test was loading to the starting area of Ratchet & Clank Rifts Apart, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Ratchet & Clank World Loading Test II
This test was loading to the first main transitional area of Ratchet & Clank Rifts Apart, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Resident Evil Village Castle Loading Test I
This test was loading the Castle Area of Resident Evil Village, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Resident Evil Village Stronghold Loading Test II
This test was loading the Stronghold of Resident Evil Village, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – GTA V Full Game Loading Test
This test was loading the Grand Theft Auto V from the PS5 menu to gameplay on the Single Player Mode, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Doom Eternal Level Loading Test I
This test was loading a level in Doom Eternal from the title screen, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Control Level Loading Test I
This test was loading to an early area of the game from the title screen on Control, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Destruction Allstars Level Loading Test I
This test was loading the first arena of Destruction Allstars from the title screen, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
PS5 Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD Testing – Destiny Level Loading Test I
This test was loading the first area of Destiny 2 from the title screen, comparing the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s vs the internal PS5 SSD:
Full Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD PS5 Test Videos
If you want to see the FULL testing of every PS5/PS4 game with the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s SSD, you can watch the videos below. These tests have been grouped into 5 games per video, with each game being assessed on Loading Times, Frame Rate, Texture swapping, Asset Popping and compared against the exact game being loaded on the PS5 SSD. NOTE – These videos are being edited and published throughout September and October, so if a video is showing as ‘unavailable’ below, it might not be published yet, but should be up shortly!
| Brand/Series
|
AORUS Gen4 7000s
1TB – $249.99 |
AORUS Gen4 7000s
2TB – $549.99 |
| PRICE | GP-AG70S1TB | GP-AG70S2TB |
| Price in $ and $ | $199 / £189 | $359 / £399 |
| Throughput | GP-AG70S1TB | GP-AG70S2TB |
| Sequential Read (Max, MB/s), 128 KB | 7000MB | 7000MB |
| Sequential Write (Max, MB/s), 128 KB | 5500MB | 6850MB |
| Gigabyte Aorus 7000s PS5 SSD Test 1
|
Gigabyte Aorus 7000s PS5 SSD Test 2
|
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